A surge in U.S. oil production has pushed the country's output to the highest level since 1992, threatening the dominance of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

The United States pumped 7.06 million barrels a day in the week ended Feb. 8, up 1 percent from the previous week and extending last year's 19 percent gain, the Energy Information Administration said this week. OPEC production fell to the lowest level in a year in January, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said in its monthly report, which also came out this week.

Improvements in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, have spurred drilling in states such as Texas, North Dakota and Oklahoma. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, OPEC's largest producer, reduced output in December because customers asked for less, Ibrahim al-Muhanna, an adviser to Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, said Jan. 14.

“Increasing amounts of North American oil production puts pressure on OPEC to find other markets for their oil,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston. “It changes the political dynamics between the U.S. and OPEC.”

U.S. crude imports have fallen 5.9 percent so far this year, extending a 21 percent decline last year, according to data from the EIA, the statistical arm of the Energy Department. The U.S. met 84 percent of its energy needs in the first 10 months of last year, on pace to reach the highest annual rate of self-sufficiency since 1991.

OPEC pumped 30.34 million barrels a day in January, down 100,000 barrels from December, the IEA said Wednesday. The agency said Saudi Arabia produced 9.25 million barrels a day, up from 9.15 million in December.

But a Bloomberg survey of oil companies, producers and analysts said January OPEC production dropped to a 15-month low because of a 100,000-barrels-a-day drop in Saudi output.

“OPEC should find it challenging to survive another 60 years, let alone another decade,” analysts led by Ed Morse, global head of commodities research at Citigroup in New York, said in a report released this week. “The United States should see its role in the world as a singular superpower enhanced and prolonged.”

Increased output from Canada and Mexico will accelerate the trend toward North American energy independence, according to the Citigroup report. By the middle of this year, the U.S. Gulf Coast no longer will import light, sweet crude, replacing it with domestic supplies. By the end of 2014, sour Canadian crude will displace shipments from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Mexico and Venezuela.

Rising U.S. production has helped keep domestic oil prices pegged to the West Texas Intermediate futures contract cheaper than London-traded Brent, giving U.S. refiners an advantage and making the country the world's largest exporter of refined petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel.

Record petroleum exports helped shrink the U.S. trade deficit in December to the smallest in almost three years. The gap narrowed 20.7 percent to $38.5 billion, the least since January 2010, the Commerce Department reported earlier this month. The U.S. imported 223 million barrels of crude oil, the least since February 1997.